TY - JOUR

T1 - Spreading the word of fashion

T2 - Identifying social influencers in fashion marketing

AU - Wiedmann, Klaus Peter

AU - Hennigs, Nadine

AU - Langner, Sascha

PY - 2012/12/12

Y1 - 2012/12/12

N2 - Regarded as the most powerful force in the fashion marketplace, often more powerful and valuable than planned communication from marketing organizations, word-of-mouth (WOM) has been recognized in marketing research for many decades. Who are the main transmitters of WOM, and why are some of them more successful at diffusing new fashions and styles in social networks than others? How can social influencers be characterized? A comprehensive understanding and management of fashion-oriented referral behavior implies the in-depth analysis of its conditions and drivers, as well as the identification of those customers with the highest social influence potential and WOM value. The contribution of this paper is to give a theoretical and empirical overview of relevant factors characterizing social influencers in fashion marketing and their fashion-oriented referral behavior. In the course of the paper, ten different factors are described and empirically tested, characterizing three different clusters of social influencers: the fashion superspreaders, the narrative fashion experts and the helpful friends. A comprehensive understanding and better management of WOM referral behavior implies the in-depth analysis of its conditions and drivers as well as the identification of those customers with the highest social influence potential and value. According to Columbia voting studies, social influence is related to “who one is,” “what one knows” and “whom one knows”. “Who one is” and “what one knows” affect the individual capital that results from several demographic, psychographic, and personality variables. The importance of "whom one knows" was subdivided into the idea of accessibility – addressing an influencer’s central location in the networks in which he is embedded – and the idea that an "… individual may be influential not only because people within his group look to him for advice but also because of whom he knows outside his group". Thus, for the purposes of this paper, the WOM behavior and referral style of customers is to be related to the customer’s individual and social capitalattributes: A customer’s individual capital includes a customer’s personality, knowledge, skills and abilities. Relating to a profound understanding of WOM communications, a customer’s social capital requires the existence of and the effects resulting from specific and sustained social relationships between consumers. In terms of a customer’s reference value, social capital addresses his social resources and is related to the effects of WOM referral behavior, such as the customer’s opportunity, motivation, and ability to disseminate WOM, as well as the scope, contents, and influence of the referral flows. To analyze the relevancy of different variables measuring individual and social capital to portray high social influence potential in a more aggregated sense, the dimensions of individual and social capital needed to be operationalized. Preparing the empirical test of our model, we used already existing and tested measures and generated further items resulting from exploratory inter-views resulting from exploratory interviews with marketing and fashion experts being asked what individual traits or social resources they associate with social influencers. The first version of our questionnaire was face validated twice using exploratory and expert interviews and pre-tested with 50 respondents to identify the most important and reduce the total number of items. The sample used in this study was defined as male or female German respondents, aged 18 years and older. A total of 480 interviews were conducted in the summer of 2007. Data were analyzed in three stages: First, the various dimensions underlying the individual and social capital of social influencers were uncovered by a factor analysis using the principal component method with varimax rotation. Then, the factor scores for each respondent were saved and consequently used in stage two for clustering them into different groups of social influencers. The results strongly suggested the presence of three clusters. Based on the variables from which they derived, the empirical findings give cause for labeling the three empirically verified clusters as follows: the fashion superspreaders the narrative fashion experts, and the helpful friends. Each type of social influencer is characterized by a different underlying philosophy of giving or not giving WOM referrals, which helps marketing managers to understand the nature and extent of WOM communications and might serve as a theoretical basis for efficiently generating and man-aging positive WOM referrals from existing clients. This knowledge can improve the efficiency of selecting different customer groups and of encouraging appropriate key consumers to leverage their WOM potential.

AB - Regarded as the most powerful force in the fashion marketplace, often more powerful and valuable than planned communication from marketing organizations, word-of-mouth (WOM) has been recognized in marketing research for many decades. Who are the main transmitters of WOM, and why are some of them more successful at diffusing new fashions and styles in social networks than others? How can social influencers be characterized? A comprehensive understanding and management of fashion-oriented referral behavior implies the in-depth analysis of its conditions and drivers, as well as the identification of those customers with the highest social influence potential and WOM value. The contribution of this paper is to give a theoretical and empirical overview of relevant factors characterizing social influencers in fashion marketing and their fashion-oriented referral behavior. In the course of the paper, ten different factors are described and empirically tested, characterizing three different clusters of social influencers: the fashion superspreaders, the narrative fashion experts and the helpful friends. A comprehensive understanding and better management of WOM referral behavior implies the in-depth analysis of its conditions and drivers as well as the identification of those customers with the highest social influence potential and value. According to Columbia voting studies, social influence is related to “who one is,” “what one knows” and “whom one knows”. “Who one is” and “what one knows” affect the individual capital that results from several demographic, psychographic, and personality variables. The importance of "whom one knows" was subdivided into the idea of accessibility – addressing an influencer’s central location in the networks in which he is embedded – and the idea that an "… individual may be influential not only because people within his group look to him for advice but also because of whom he knows outside his group". Thus, for the purposes of this paper, the WOM behavior and referral style of customers is to be related to the customer’s individual and social capitalattributes: A customer’s individual capital includes a customer’s personality, knowledge, skills and abilities. Relating to a profound understanding of WOM communications, a customer’s social capital requires the existence of and the effects resulting from specific and sustained social relationships between consumers. In terms of a customer’s reference value, social capital addresses his social resources and is related to the effects of WOM referral behavior, such as the customer’s opportunity, motivation, and ability to disseminate WOM, as well as the scope, contents, and influence of the referral flows. To analyze the relevancy of different variables measuring individual and social capital to portray high social influence potential in a more aggregated sense, the dimensions of individual and social capital needed to be operationalized. Preparing the empirical test of our model, we used already existing and tested measures and generated further items resulting from exploratory inter-views resulting from exploratory interviews with marketing and fashion experts being asked what individual traits or social resources they associate with social influencers. The first version of our questionnaire was face validated twice using exploratory and expert interviews and pre-tested with 50 respondents to identify the most important and reduce the total number of items. The sample used in this study was defined as male or female German respondents, aged 18 years and older. A total of 480 interviews were conducted in the summer of 2007. Data were analyzed in three stages: First, the various dimensions underlying the individual and social capital of social influencers were uncovered by a factor analysis using the principal component method with varimax rotation. Then, the factor scores for each respondent were saved and consequently used in stage two for clustering them into different groups of social influencers. The results strongly suggested the presence of three clusters. Based on the variables from which they derived, the empirical findings give cause for labeling the three empirically verified clusters as follows: the fashion superspreaders the narrative fashion experts, and the helpful friends. Each type of social influencer is characterized by a different underlying philosophy of giving or not giving WOM referrals, which helps marketing managers to understand the nature and extent of WOM communications and might serve as a theoretical basis for efficiently generating and man-aging positive WOM referrals from existing clients. This knowledge can improve the efficiency of selecting different customer groups and of encouraging appropriate key consumers to leverage their WOM potential.

KW - Fashion marketing

KW - Opinion leader

KW - Referral behavior

KW - Social influencers

KW - Word-of-Mouth

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84896981697&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/20932685.2010.10593066

DO - 10.1080/20932685.2010.10593066

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84896981697

VL - 1

SP - 142

EP - 153

JO - Journal of Global Fashion Marketing

JF - Journal of Global Fashion Marketing

SN - 2093-2685

IS - 3

ER -